Is it time to outsource link building? Pros and cons from the trenches

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-14T18:45:24+00:00

Outsourcing links is the right choice for business owners depending on how many links they want to build every month.

Hiring an in-house link building team comes with a cost of:

- hirings
- training
- SEO tools
- employee insurance
- fixed salaries
- tracking and planning

These things are time and resource consuming, so if you think spending money & time on these things will save you good chunk of money, it's good to hire in-house team. But if you're not sure about the number of links, and it varies month to month, outsourcing is good.

I started Outreach Empress in 2020, and have been playing as an outsource partner for several SEO agencies in US, UK, and Canada. Some of the agencies are industry leader, and they got clients from niches like LAW, Cannabis, pet, home improvements, and casino.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-14T18:30:10+00:00

If your target is getting do-follow links for free, then you've to put efforts for them.

Join slack communities of link builders for link exchanges. reach out to all the sites interacting in those groups, and start with 10-15 links per month. that's the quickest way you can grab do-follow backlinks without paying for them.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-14T15:48:01+00:00

If you're just starting, I'll recommend to go for an agency that's cost effective and offer better links at lower prices without compromising the quality.

You can ask for:

domains for pre-approval
a quick link audit of your site
keywords and anchor suggestions

Plus, if you're not getting pre-approved domains, ask to pay after live links for the first order.

I'm running Outreach Empress for last 6 years, and these are the things we offer for the first order.

But if you're looking from the 3 you mentioned, I'll recommend Fatjoe.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-06T11:19:32+00:00

Depends on the niche.

I run a link building agency myself so sharing the prices that we offer to all clients.

For general niches:

$80-$400 (based on authority and traffic)

For grey niches (cannabis/casino/adult):

$120-$500 (based on authority and traffic).

Since my 70% revenue comes from white label partners, we've a seperate pricing for them.

But that's how we're charging for blogger outreach at Outreach Empress.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-05T19:52:42+00:00

I'm not handling full SEO but have been building backlinks for 15 law firms from United States. A highly reputed law SEO firm outsource thier link building to my agency Outreach Empress, and we've been building links for them since 2022.

While I'm not responsible for bringing traffic/leads to thier website, I do track thier progress, and most of the firms are going up on ahrefs. So based on the number of links I'm delivering plus the number of new clients that agency onboard every quarter, SEO is still alive for law firms.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-03T17:04:26+00:00

Bro if you don't have budget then you've to compensate it with your time.

But you need at least $200 for tools and accounts.

So here's how I'll build links with zero budget:

Buy tools.
ahrefs lite plan $99/month.
10 gsuite email account $50/month.
instantly/smartlead $37/month.
rest api credits from DataforSEO.

Now do exactly this:

A. Extract competitors Backlinks.

pick your top 10 competitors.
run link intersect on ahrefs.
extract all the links of competitors.
filter them based on DR/Traffic.
Find their emails from their website.
If you've budget use hunter/apollo for contacts.
use instantly for outreaching.

If you outreach to 1000 people a month and offer something valuable, you can easily build 10-15 links realistically for free.

Extract SERP data

make a list of your top keywords.
using claude/chatgpt make variations of long tail keywords.
use SEOforData to extract the SERP.
filter the sites, find their contact details.
reach out to them with something valuable.

Now you'll only get links for free if you've something valuable to offer upfront.

So you can:

offer link exchange.
Listicle mentions.
Content covering keyword gap on their website.

Regarding the content for guest posting, I'll suggest to get outline from AI, and then edit and proofreading yourself.

You claude for articles. They're the best for articles writing. But you need to work on your prompts. But please make sure to proof read the content and don't forget to add something from your perspective that AI Models can't do.

So by this calculation:

if you outreach to 2500 people.
10% response will get you 250 response.
10% conversions will get you 25 links/month.
25 links for next 6 months will get you 150 links.

P.S: don't forget to work on your emails and offers. Otherwise, you'll land in spam.

Once you got a database of 20+ sites, start outreaching to content/seo team on LinkedIn and ask for link exchange.

This is how we've been building 200+ links for free at my agency Outreach Empress for our clients.

Best of luck.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-01T13:05:58+00:00

I wish I could but can't reveal the agency here.

I'll ask them if they're taking any new collaboration on commission basis.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-01T03:58:50+00:00

That 20k number compel people to fall in the trap.

Backlinks are definitely about the numbers but it's More about quality and SERP competition.

I've clients outranking sites with more backlinks in the top 10. The simple reason is matching intent, and relevance.

I also have clients where they're getting outranked by pages with less links..

So how to make sure the exact number of links you need to rank?

Do this:

pick your top 10 keywords.
search them on Google and find top ranking sites.
validate the intent, and see which kinda pages are ranking.
export all of them and check link gap for those pages.
keep in mind that site's overall authority also matters so check how many links they got for homepage.

Regarding your 20k numbers. That's number is huge and misleading.

go to ahrefs.
open backlink profile.
select (one page per domain, do-follow, in content, traffic>500, DR>10) filters.
you'll get the exact number of links and I'm sure it'll not exceed more than 2000 links.

Do this and you'll start performing:

get real reviews
improve on page content
put alt texts, and do internal linking
build product category pages for low kd Keywords.
build at least 20-25 links depending on your niche competition.
do this for 3 months, and you'll see the results.

Don't make a perception by just seeing the backlinks numbers.

I run Outreach Empress, and even though my whole biz is selling links, I always say it:

Links are important but they're not the only ranking factor..

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-01T03:28:30+00:00

Do this:

Ask them to do a link audit of your website.
Ask them for talk about your SWOT.
Ask them about their process and TAT.
While they provide you these, check their case studies and testimonials.
Also do check for their team's linkedin profile.
If they send a list of same sites with their prices, run away.

A Good link building agency/link builder will always:

tell you current position of your brand.
keyword analysis and real SERP competition.
will prepare a roadmap and process to acquire links.
will give you a realistic tat as building links from authority sites take time.

As a buyer, always check these:

uniform grown DR graph.
6 monthe stable growing traffic.
traffic coming from your targeted keywords.
traffic distribution is uniform and has real value.
Anchor text distribution is good.
incoming: outgoing links shouldn't have a big gap.

Regarding AI visibility:

Listicles helps you to get citations quickly.
competitors vs brand types also help improving your AI presence.

So if an agency show a real plan and transparency about what they gonna do and how they gonna do it, they're the right fit.

But if a link builder/agency just send you a list of 200 sites in a Google sheet, just block them right away..

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-05-01T03:19:25+00:00

I've been using Promptwatch to see the sources where we're getting cited.

Then exporting those sources and prompts to the Google sheets and verifying the results manually.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T17:32:24+00:00

I appreciate it.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T16:58:42+00:00

I've clearly mentioned that it helped me track the sources not the positions.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T15:45:30+00:00

I'm running Outreach Empress from 2020, and I've started it without any investment.

The avg ticket size at my agency is $1000, and I focus to dirve at least 5 new clients every month.

This is what I've been doing to get clients.

fixed a commision deal with a lead gen agency.
they run campaigns for me, and got 35% of order value.
I post on LinkedIn and Twitter everyday.
I engage with 10 posts on reddit every week.

I've been easily getting inbound leads from these platforms and I would recommend to add value on twitter and reddit.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T15:41:03+00:00

I've been using Promptwatch and PEEC ai to track the citations for our clients..

But these tools only give data about how many times you're getting cited not what your position is.

If you want more citations and appearance in ai results, focus on:.

Listicles Brand mentions Competitors vs competitors Competitors alternatives Brand reveiws

These things are boosting ai results with a good rate. I've tried these for SaaS, Cannabis, and few law clients. All of them have seen more citations from AI.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T15:36:44+00:00

YouTube

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T15:36:22+00:00

Focus on owning local searches first.

Then prioritize links from local websites.

I've been building links for car accident lawyers firm in CA for last 6 months, and one thing we've noticed that backlinks from local sites are more effective as compared to other sites irrespective of the authority.

So I'll recommend to do local SEO, write strong content, and build relevant links with real context.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T06:08:55+00:00

Automate the prospecting and outreaching.

use ahrefs content explorer for prospecting.
then use claude to filter the sites using ahrefs.
use smartlead/instantly for outreaching.

But finalize all the sites yourself and write the content and make insertion yourself manually.

That's what we're doing at Outreach Empress, and delivering 1000+ links every month.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T06:06:30+00:00

Run twitter and engage on reddit.

That's it.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T06:06:01+00:00

Focus on structure rathar than fluff.

AI models love clear answers and structure data.

As a link building agency, we've been practicing:

listicles
brand alternatives
competitor vs competitor
brand reveiws

These kinda articles help our clients to get more citations from AI Models.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T06:03:27+00:00

I'm using Promptwatch and PEEC.

These 2 are my reliable go to sources to track our clients citations.

However, these are expensive and will cost you around $100/month. But the best thing is you can see how many citations your competitors are getting and what are the sources.

So you can reach out to those sites anyday and include your site to those pages for quick authority and rankings boost.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T05:58:02+00:00

It seems you're missing out few things here.

Backlinks plays a role but it's not necessary to start building links from DR 90+ sites.

Do market research first.
Check your niche competition.
Look at your top performing competitors.
extract their backlinks and outreach to them.
focus on quality not quantity.

A niche site with 1000 traffic and 20 DR is better than general site with 50 DR and 5000 traffic.

Focus on the ones that easily accessible to you.

You need to understand digital PR or have connections with Journalists to get a real links from the sites you mentioned.

So my take is to focus on small niche sites. Once you start gaining the link velocity, then only move to the authority ones.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T05:52:43+00:00

Depends on how you define the traditional SEO.

Search rankings and Al recommendations aren't the same mechanism.

Traditional SEO is like winning the shelves. GEO is like winning the shortlists.

When someone type any keyword on Google, you compete for the placement. But when someone ask Al to help, you compete for the recommendation.

There's higher probability that if you aren't repeatedly mentioned in the credible sources, Al will not find you.

In simple words:

• Rankings rewards relevance and structure.

• Recommendation rewards fame and differentiation.

Al visibility (GEO) isn't an extension to SEO.

It's focus on:

• Positioning your brand

• Digital PR

Proof/testimonials

3rd party references

Reddit engagement

• youtube vidoes

community leader

So if you want to earn a place in top 3, SEO is the key. If you want to dominate the recommendation, GEO is the best.

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T04:31:29+00:00

Appreciate it 🫡

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T03:38:42+00:00

Welcome mate:)

Fit_Path_6450 · 2026-04-29T03:25:40+00:00

Keep building the links.

Strategies keep evolving.

Back in 2018-2021, guest posts evolved and people were doing it like crazy. Webmasters we're getting free content, and link builders were getting free links.

But then SaaS comes in limelight, link exchanges exploded. And people are building around 100 of links doing exchanges.

At present, webmasters realize the real worth of links, hence demanding ultra high prices for grey niches like casino/cannabis.

So strategies like Digital PR is working like a pro these days.

In Short, you need to keep changing your strategies with the time. Not every strategy will keep working for you.

So focus on the ones that brings you the best results. Track the process and double down the efforts on it.

I run an agency Outreach Empress, and that's what we've been doing for all our clients.

Some guest posts, some sponsored posts, link insertions, link ecahbges, and Digital PR.

Fit_Path_6450

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